


^-^^ *i 







ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY 

Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep — 
He hath awakened from the dream of life. 

Adonais. 



The first small-paper edition for America 
is limited to five hundred copies, of 
which four hundred and fifty- 
are for sale. 

There is also an edition of sixty 
copies on hand-made paper. 



The portrait is drawn by 

Mr. A. F. Jaccaci 

from a photograph by 

Elliott & Frye 

of London 



7' 

ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY 

HIS LIFE AND HIS WORK 

WITH SELECTIONS FROM 

HIS POEMS 



BY 

LOUISE CHANDLER 
MOULTON 




MDCCCXCIV 




/3 9^3 



CAMBRIDGE AND CHICAGO 

Published by STONE & KIMBALL 

London : Elkin Mathews & John Lane 






COPYRIGHT 

1894 

BY 

STONE & KIMBALL 



To THE Memory of Five Friends 

What wailing wind of Memory is this 

That blows across the Sea of Time to-day, 
Blending the fragrance of a long-dead May 

With breath of Autumn — agony with bliss ? 

Philip Bourke Manton. 



My thanks are due to Rev. A. W. New- 
port Deacon, the cousin and literary execu- 
tor of Arthur O'Shaughnessy, and also to his 
publishers, Messrs. Chatto & Windus, for 
permission to use the selections included in 
this volume. 

L. C. M. 

March, 1894. 



ige 
13 



CONTENTS 

Introduction 

From An Epic of Women 
AND Other Poems : 

Exile ...... 49 

The Cypress . . . . 52 

A Whisper from the Grave . . 53 

Bisclavaret .... 59 

The Story of the King ... 68 

The Fountain of Tears . . 72 

There is an Earthly Glimmer in the 

Tomb -j^i 

From Lays of France : 

From the Lay of the Nightingale . 79 

From the Lay of Two Lovers . 82 

From Chaitivel .... 88 

From the Lay of Eliduc . . 92 



Contents 







Page 


From Music and Moonlight: 






Ode 


. 


99 


Has Summer Come without the 


Rose 


? 103 


Three Gifts 


. 


105 


Now I am on the Earth . 


. 


106 


A Dream .... 


. 


107 


At the Last 


• 


108 


From Songs of a Worker: 






At Her Grave 


, 


111 


Lynmouth 


o 


113 


A Love Symphony 


. 


117 


In a Bower 


. 


119 



INTRODUCTION 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

HIS LIFE AND HIS WORK 

" IVbat voice is this?" 

fjQ^^TlpMONG the poets of whom more 
^OllV^ ought to be known, any student of 
^^7t^^3 English poetry for the last twenty- 
five years would certainly class Arthur Wil- 
liam Edgar O'Shaughnessy. None of his four 
volumes, published in London, has been re- 
printed in America ; and they have, perhaps, 
been little read here save by certain poets and 
critics. Yet they contain much that poetry- 
loving readers can ill afford to miss. By vir- 
tue of his best work, O'Shaughnessy must 
always hold an honorable place in the roll of 
the Victorian poets. As his friend and brother 
poet, Edmund Gosse, said of him in the Acad- 
13 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

emy, soon after his death, his work was of un- 
equal merit, but when whatever is trivial in it 
has been winnowed away there must remain, 
as long as English verse is preserved, a re- 
siduum of exquisite poetry, full of odor and 
melody, and essentially unlike the work of any 
one else. 

The facts of Arthur O'Shaughnessy 's life 
are few. His career was in no wise eventful. 
He lived in his friendships, his loves, his griefs, 
and his work ; and quiet years went by him, 
marked only by the ebb and flow of the tide 
of song. He was of Irish descent, but born in 
London, on the 14th of March, 1844. He 
was in some sense a protege of the late Lord 
Lytton, who was an old friend of his mother, 
and was one of the first to discover and de- 
light in the boy's genius. It was through Lord 
Lytton that he received an appointment, in 
1861, as a junior assistant in the department 
of printed books in the British Museum, 
whence he was transferred, in 1863, to be a 
senior assistant in the Natural History De- 
partment. Here he remained until his death, 
passing the rest of his working days in the 
classification of fishes and reptiles, " in a queer 
14 



His Life and his Work 

little subterranean cell, strongly scented with 
spirits of wine, and with grim creatures pick- 
led round him in rows on rows of gallipots." 

He brought out his first volume of poems 
in 1870, and dedicated it to his friend, John 
Payne, who also published in that same year 
his own first volume of poems, and dedicated 
it to Arthur O'Shaughnessy. Soon after the 
appearance of these volumes, inscribed to each 
other, these two young poets began to be 
known in London literary society, and were 
frequent guests at the far-famed evenings of 
Ford Madox Browne, the artist, whose house 
was at that time a center of literary and artis- 
tic hospitality. Those delightful evenings in 
Fitzroy Square were given up after the death, 
in 1872, of the son of the house, that '""mar- 
vellous boy," Oliver Madox Browne, poet, 
painter, and novelist, all in one. With the 
death of this only and idolized son, Mr. Ford 
Madox Browne withdrew for some time from 
society, and ceased to be the gay and debon- 
air host, under whose roof choice spirits were 
wont to make merry; but while those famous 
evenings lasted what noctes ambrosianas they 
had been! The old house to begin with — the 
15 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

oldest and largest in solemn old Fitzroy Square 
— was the very abode which Thackeray peopled 
with his Newcomes. It was big enough for 
a castle, and it had wide and lofty rooms, and 
massive stone staircases, and long underground 
passages leading to vaults which might have 
served for dungeons ; a house haunted by 
echoes, and with winds whispering secrets in 
its great chambers; cool in the hottest sum- 
mer day, and in the winter needing all the 
riotous warmth and brightness of the fires 
which used to fill its old-fashioned fireplaces, 
and roar up the wide-mouthed chimneys. And 
what men and women came there in those 
days ! Some of them are ghosts now, and 
haunt, mayhap, the old rooms still. Rossetti 
was there, the Rossetti, painter of poems, and 
poet of pictures; his sister, Christina, who is 
now so seldom seen outside her quiet home; 
their brother, William Michael, the critic, who 
afterward married a daughter of the Madox 
Brownes. William Morris came, too — he who 
divides his time, now, between writing poems 
that will live, and planning decorations for 
houses for other people to live in — and with 
him came his wife, whose beauty he sang and 
i6 



His Life and his Work 

Rossetti painted, till she became part of the 
literary history of the Victorian epoch. She 
was "divinely tall," this "daughter of the 
gods," and by many accounted the most " di- 
vinely fair " woman of her time. She is a 
striking figure yet, with her remarkable height 
and her equally remarkable grace, her deep 
eyes, her heavy, dark hair, and her full, sen- 
sitive red lips. But in those old days she was 
young still, and in our picture — 

Give her back her youth again, 
Lei her be as she was then ! 
Let her have her proud, dark eyes, 
And her petulant, quick replies ; 
Let her sv^^eep her dazzling hand, 
With its gesture of command, 
And shake back her raven hair 
With the old, imperious air. 

In another corner sat Wilham Bell Scott. 
He — as well as Ford Madox Browne, him- 
self—died not long ago, and even at the time 
of which I speak he was no longer young, ex- 
cept in the sense that with his sunny, gentle, 
childlike nature he must be young immortally. 
Like Rossetti, Scott was both poet and painter, 
a 17 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

and his work should, in justice to his genius, 
be far more widely known than it is. Dr. Hake 
was a frequent guest ; and Swinburne ; and 
Theodore Watts, poet and critic — but Watts 
belongs to the younger men. 

The younger men were in great force at 
these Fitzroy Square symposia ; and among 
them it would have been impossible not to no- 
tice O'Shaughnessy, with his handsome, sensi- 
tive, clearly cut face, his bright, earnest eyes, 
behind the glasses which gave him a student- 
like aspect, his rather slight but well-knit fig- 
ure, with the noticeably small feet and hands, 
so well-shod and gloved, in which he took an 
innocent pride. He was full of enthusiasm, 
and I think, had length of days been given him, 
he would always have been the youngest man 
in every company. What pleasure he had in 
things small and great ! He was as simply 
frank in his appreciation of his own work as 
in that of other people, and I shall never for- 
get the quick " Like it, eh ? " and the sudden 
light in his eyes when he perceived that some- 
thing he was reading or reciting had found its 
way to his listener's interest. He was half a 
Frenchman in his love for and mastery of the 
i8 



His Life and his Work 

French language; andmany of his closest affilia- 
tions were with the younger school of French 
poets. He used to pass most of his vacations 
in Paris, where he always received the warm- 
est of welcomes. He was one of Victor Hugo's 
most ardent admirers, and his visits to " the 
master," as he was wont to call Hugo, were 
among his memorable delights. But he de- 
lighted in everything. A kind word, a child's 
shy caress, a bit of smoky London sky with a 
red sun struggling through it, the sigh of the 
wind, the sea breaking against a stretch of rag- 
ged coast, the beauty of a woman, the hand- 
clasp of a man, books, pictures, music, the 
drama — how he loved them all ! I think some- 
times that, with his keenly enjoying nature, he 
compressed more happiness into his thirty-six 
years of life than most men, even men of imagi- 
nation, find in a life that lasts on into hoary age. 

He was full of interest even in his ** speci- 
mens " at the museum — his butterflies, his 
lizards, his serpents. He had come, before his 
death, really to be recognized as an authority 
on reptilia. 

I never saw him dull. Some little thing had 
always interested him, and I half wondered 
19 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

the mummied insects with which he was sur- 
rounded did not quicken into life under the 
magnetism of his so living touch. And yet 
there must have been a melancholy side to 
this sunny nature, for through his poetry there 
thrills forever a minor chord. Perhaps he 
walked in the sunshine with his friends, and 
went alone into the shadow. I shall speak 
later of the haunting and prophetic sadness of 
some even of his earliest work. But first let 
me follow the course of his too brief life to its 
sudden end. 

An Epic of Women, 1870, was a remark- 
able first volume and it had a remarkable suc- 
cess, which at once gave its author a decided 
position among the poetsof his time; and, from 
him who had done so much already, people 
expected much more. In 1872 he published 
his Lays of France, and in 1873 he married 
the eldest daughter of Dr. Westland Marston, 
the dramatist, and sister to Philip Bourke 
Marston, the poet. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy was 
a person of rare mental gifts. She was at once 
imaginative and witty. In conjunction with 
her husband she published a volume of sto- 
ries for children, entitled Toy-Land. But, 
20 



His Life and his Work 

charming as this work was, her share in it very 
inadequately representedher varied gifts, which 
only the ill-health following upon the births 
and deaths of her two children prevented her 
from using for the public. 

It seemed as if, for the small group of peo- 
ple of whom O'Shaughnessy was one, misfor- 
tune began with the death of Oliver Madox 
Browne. It was followed by the loss of the 
O'Shaughnessy infants ; by the death of Mrs. 
0'Shaughnessy*s only sister in 1878, and by 
Mrs. O'Shaughnessy's own death in the Feb- 
ruary of 1879. The grief of our poet at this 
last supreme loss was such as belongs to the 
poetic temperament — not deeper or more sin- 
cere than that of other men, but certainly more 
picturesque. He told those who knew him best 
how he was haunted by his wife's presence; 
how constantly she dwelt in his thoughts ; how 
impossible it would be to forget her. And yet 
his was a poet's nature, and must needs have 
been consoled. It is not, I think, the men of 
imagination who grieve forever, but rather the 
practical men, who find no outlet for their sor- 
row in beautiful words, and have no fancy with 
which to bedeck the image of some consoling 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

angel. In the very nature of things Arthur 
O'Shaughnessy must have loved again — had 
begun to do so, in fact. In this second sum- 
mer of the heart, all his wonderful capacity for 
happiness vi^ould surely have reasserted itself; 
but just then, as if his dead wife reached pale 
hands from under the earth to draw him to- 
ward her, in one week from the time he went 
out gaily to witness the performance of a fa- 
vorite actor he lay dead, with a woman's idle 
tears falling upon his unresponsive face. He 
died on the 30th of January, 1 88 1, a week less 
than two years after the death of his wife. As 
his brother-in-law, Marston, wrote, on the an- 
niversary of his death : 

Thou wert so full of song and strength and life, 
Hadst such keen pleasure in small things and great, 
It hardly can seem real to know thy state 
Is with the ancient dead. 

I think all of us who knew him felt some- 
thing of what these lines express. He had been 
so keenly alive, it did not seem possible that he 
could be dead. Instinctively one turned, in 
the old haunts, to speak to him — even as so 
often we spoke of him. Who knows that he 
did not hear ? Only that voice — that flexi- 



His Life and his Work 

ble, sweet, clear voice of his — answers us no 
more, and it is the first time he was ever unre- 
sponsive to a friend. So much for his " fair, 
fleet, singing life," as Marston called it in the 
poem from which I have already quoted. It 
remains to speak of his work. 

I have said that his first volume. An Epic 
of Women, was a very remarkable book. It 
contains some poems which he scarcely sur- 
passed afterward for rhythmic beauty and ori- 
ginality of conception. Also it was noticeable 
for a strange vein of poetic sadness, and the 
more noticeable because the man himself was 
so gay and riant. It may be that in secret his 
soul foreboded, even then, the brief life and 
sudden death that awaited him. It would al- 
most seem so, from one of his saddest and most 
pathetic poems, A Whisper from the Grave. 

The title of An Epic of Women is, per- 
haps, scarcely justified by the contents. In the 
part of the volume specially included under 
this head, we find first that audacious, mys- 
tical, sensuous, Swinburnian poem. Creation. 
Mr. Gosse says of this poem that, "As some 
Catholic writers have been drawn through 
mysticism into sensuousness, O'Shaughnessy 
as 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

was led through sensuous reverie into mystical 
exaltation. His much maligned and misrepre- 
sented poem. Creation, is, if we exclude the 
cynicism of the last stanza, pure Catholic doc- 
trine, and might have been signed by St. Ber- 
nard." This poem is followed by The Wife 
of Hephaestus, Cleopatra, The Daughter of 
Herodias, Helen, and A Troth for Eternity. 
Read this superb word-picture of the Serpent 
of Old Nile, with which the Cleopatra opens : 

She made a feast for great Marc Antony : 
Her galley was arrayed in gold and light ; 

That evening in the purple sea and sky, 
It shone green-golden like a chrysolite. 

She was reclined upon a Tyrian couch 

Of crimson wools j out of her loosened vest 

Set on one shoulder with a serpent brooch 
Fell one white arm and half her foam-white 
breast. 

And with the breath of many a fanning plume, 
That wonder of her hair that was like wine — 

Of mingled fires and purples that consume — 
Moved all its mystery of threads most fine, 

And under saffron canopies all bright 

With clash of lights, e'en to the amber prow 

Crept, like enchantments subtle, passing sight, 

Fragrance, and siren-music soft and slow. 

24 



His Life and his Work 

In Helen, and more notably still in A Troth 
for Eternity, we discern a fine dramatic qual- 
ity, which the strong lyric bent of Mr. 
O'Shaughnessy's genius has somewhat ob- 
scured in the larger part of his work. Helen 
is represented as weary at last of Troy, and 
going back in mem ory to the old day s in Greece, 
and longing, woman-like, for what she had 
carelessly thrown away. A Troth for Eter- 
nity suggests memories of Rossetti, and also of 
Browning, without containing anything that 
could distinctly be traced to either. The 
revelation in it of the man's unconscious mad- 
ness, through his conscious and jealous love, 
is given with a subtlety and strength, surpris- 
ing indeed when regarded as the work of a 
young man of twenty-five. The Fountain of 
Tears is a poem of such pure and perfect 
beauty, one can hardly praise it too strongly. 
O'Shaughnessy seldom wrote sonnets, and still 
more seldom was at his best in them ; but he 
has given us one in this volume that we could 
ill afford to miss : " There is an earthly glim- 
mer in the tomb ! " 

In this volume, also, we find Bisclavaret, 
of which Mr. Gosse speaks as the *' reverse of 
^5 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

the medal " from such poems as The Fountain 
of Tears, the sonnet just mentioned, Chaitivel, 
and others. In the whole, however, of this 
brilliant, interesting, but unequal first book 
there is certainly no more original poem than 
Bisclavaret. Its motif is drawn from the le- 
gends of the Were- Wolf, and so faithfully does 
it picture the inhuman ecstasies and savage fire 
and passion of 

The splendid fearful herds that stray 
By midnight, when tempestuous moons 

Light them to many a shadowy prey, 
And earth beneath the thunder swoons, 

that the reader shudders with a vague and 
nameless fear, as if one were, perforce, a spec- 
tator of these unholy raids. The poet's im- 
agination revels in the presentment of lonely 
places, given up to wild winds and spectral 
moonhghts ; and his sympathy with the law- 
less lives of these evil phantoms, with their 
keen relish of the night and of pursuit, their 
cruelty aching like hunger, and their mad glee 
over the fallen, is so perfect, one half believes 
that all of this he saw and part of it he was. 
One merit of this volume is its simplicity of 
26 



His Life and his Work 

purpose — and by this I do not mean simplicity 
of idea or of method, but that simplicity which 
came of absolute loyalty to his own conception 
and ideal. No man loved the appreciation of 
his fellows better than O'Shaughnessy. He 
basked in praise, as a flower in the sunshine ; 
but he never made a bid for it by the slightest 
sacrifice of his own conception of the rights 
and purposes of art, at least in either of the 
books published during his lifetime. From 
some of his posthumous poems it may be in- 
ferred that he either departed from his for- 
mer lines because he had gone beyond them, 
or else he was seeking for his Muse a more 
solid ground than her wayward feet had hith- 
erto possessed. I should be guilty of an un- 
pardonable omission, did I fail to mention, in 
connection with An Epic of Women, the fan- 
tastic but most interesting drawings with which 
his friend, John Nettleship, enriched it. Since 
those days Mr. Nettleship has become famous 
as a painter of animals. In the Grosvenor gal- 
lery of 1883 one of the most moving pictures 
was his Blind Lion; helpless forest-king, whom 
now even the jackals dared to flout. 
Mr. O'Shaughnessy's next volume was Lays 
27 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

of France, a collection of metrical romances, 
loosely founded on the Lais of Marie de 
France. This book contains some of the most 
divinely lovely lyrics which O'Shaughnessy 
ever gave to the world, and in one of the Lays, 
namely Chaitivel, I am inclined to think he 
touched his high-water mark of inspiration. I 
have just taken it up and read it again. The 
conception is, to the last degree, ghostly ; and 
it deals chiefly with that material life after 
death, which always had such a strong attrac- 
tion for our poet. 

It is the story of a woman who had been 
loved by three lovers — all of them now dead. 
One was a boy, to whom she had given but a 
smile's chance grace — another was Pharamond, 
who had died fighting in Paynim warfare. On 
him she had bestowed a longtress of her golden 
hair, which had gone with him to his grave, 
and grown there until its shining coils quite 
wrapped him round. To the third lover she had 
given herself; and now all these were gone. 

And all she was and all she bore 
Of rare and wonderful lay known 
To the worms only, left alone 

With faded secrets, in the core 
Of dead men's hearts. 
28 



His Life and his Work 

And she began to grieve, not only for him 
whom she had loved, but for those others 
whom her love might have saved. 

Time was so bare — 
Her heart at solitary feast 
Of sorrow, sitting unreleast 
Forever. 

Oh, who would stir 
In sleep down there, and think he missed 
Aught of the faultless mouth he kissed 
His life all through. 

And since to her 

No man returned ; since no more lack 
Of her gave any strength to stir 

The very gravestone and come back ; 
And he whose soul's least word of love 
Seemed a love-fetter strong enough 

To bind eternity to whole 

Eternity — since now his soul 
Having content of her, or quite 

Forgetting, left her, as a thing 

Not owned, and never jealous sting 
Caused him to care now, day or night. 
What chance might happen to the white 

Unblemished beauty, or the heart 

His empire — ah, as houseless wraiths. 
And unhoused, creeping beasts would glide 
Back to a house, the day he died 
29 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

Who cast them forth — so, from such part 
Of her annulled past, full of faiths 

Abjured and fruitless love and loss 

There came back to her heart the host 
Of memories comfortless ; the ghost 

Of every lover now might cross 

Its threshold when he would, to scare 
And grieve her with his tears, or bare 

The great wound in his heart, or make 

Long threat of unknown things for sake 
Of some forgotten, heedless word. 

And in this solitude the thought of Phara- 
mond — that soul of strange power, stronger 
than his fate — beset her strangely, and 

The intense flower 
Of waving strange-leaved trees that sang, 
His dirge with voices wild and soft, 

Wafted her perfume that had power 

To shake her heart ; warm air that rang 
With ends of unknown singing, oft 

Broke in upon her, as though space 
Of cold climes and cold seas between 
Were dwindling. 

And yet, like the others, he came not, and 
since none of these dead returned for her com- 
30 



His Life and his Work 

fort, though even the spirits of those unloved 
in life had power to vex and haunt her, and 
he whom she had loved utterly lay 

Enthralled, past knowing cold or heat, 
Or hearing thunder or the feet 
Of armies — 

to her, ghost-haunted and comfortless. Love 
came afresh — Love, who pursues our hearts 
forever, 

with his new 

Inconstant summer — to convert 

And steal them from the thing they knew 

Their own — to cause them to desert 
Their piteous memories and the few 

Fond faiths of perfect years. Alas, 

He careth not how he may hurt 

The dead, or trouble them that wait 

In heaven, so he may bring to pass 
Ever some new thing passionate 
And sweet upon the earth ; his sun 
Hath need of you; and if he takes 
Last year's spoiled roses and remakes 

Red summer with them, shall he shun 

To steal your soft hearts every one, 
O men and women, to enrich 

His fair, new, transitory reign ? 
31 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

Thus, love-commissioned, came Chaitivel^ 

Whom his fate made to love her well, 
And seek her, knowing naught of those 
That held her on the other side 
Of death. 



A man 
Most goodly, full of all the gay 

And thrilling, summer time that rang 
Once more with rapture through the heart. 

And the fair, lonesome woman's heart 
awakened to this summer, and blossomed anew. 
And he whom she had loved knew, deep in 
his grave, that she was false. In what she 
says to him, thinking of him and excusing her 
soul before him, and in what he answers out of 
his grave, there is a ghostly realism which is 
something unique. 

I am too distant from that shore 
Of life already, 

he says, and then he cries, if that be " cry ** 
with which the dead assail our living ears : 

Ah, haste 
To live thy false life through, that I 
May have that wrecked thing I did buy, 
A body for a soul. 

3a 



His Life and his Work 

But already she has cast off her bondage. 
Why should she be bound, indeed, to this soul, 
whose voice reaches her from the under-world, 
but whose love has not been strong enough to 
bring him back to save her ? She grows glad 
again in the newjoy of Chaitivel's wooing. But 
one day a pity for Pharamond in his far-off 
grave steals over her heart, and she sings a 
song to his listening ghost, so subtly lovely 
that it, alone, would prove its author's claim 
to rank among the poets. 

Hath any loved you well, down there 

Summer or winter through ? 
Down there have you found any fair 

Laid in the grave with you ? 
Is death's long kiss a richer kiss 

Than mine was wont to be, 
Or have you gone to some far bliss 

And straight forgotten me ? 

What soft enamouring of sleep 

Hath you in some soft way ? 
What charmed death holdeth you with deep. 

Strange lure by night and day ? 
A little space below the grass 

Out of the sun and shade, 
But worlds away from me, alas, 

Down there where you are laid ? 
3 33 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

My bright hair's waved and wasted gold, 

What is it now to thee ? — 
Whether the rose-red life I hold 

Or white death holdeth me ? 
Down there you love the grave's own green, 

And ever more you rave 
Of some sweet seraph you have seen 

Or dreamt of in the grave. 

There you shall lie as you have lain, 

Though in the world above 
Another live your life again, 

And love again your love : 
Is it not sweet beneath the palm ? 

Is not the warm day rife 
With some long mystic golden calm 

Better than love and life ? 

The broad quaint odorous leaves like hands 

Weaving the fair day through 
Weave sleep no burnished bird withstands 

While death weaves sleep for you ; 
And many a strange rich breathing sound 

Ravishes morn and noon : 
And in that place you must have found 

Death a delicious swoon. 

Hold me no longer for a word 

I used to say or sing : 
Ah, long ago you must have heard 

So many a sweeter thing : 
34 



His Life and his Work 

For rich earth must have reached your heart 
And turned the faith to flowers ; 

And warm winds stolen, part by part 
Your soul through faithless hours. 

And many a soft seed must have won 

Soil of some yielding thought 
To bring a bloom up to the sun 

That else had ne'er been brought ; 
And doubtless many a passionate hue 

Hath made that place more fair, 
Making some passionate part of you 

Faithless to me down there. 

And the song stole into the grave of Phara- 
mond, and he unwound the golden tress in 
whose meshes he was bound, and 

. . . rose up dumb and mighty — pale 
And terrible in blood-stained mail, 

and went back, across lands and seas, to claim 
the soul of the singer. 

When her bridal day was come, then the 
phantoms had their will. First of all came the 
boy whose heart she had smiled away, and sat 
an awesome shadow 'twixt bride and groom. 

His phantom flickered as a flame 
Blown blue and rent about by wind. 
35 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

And behold, 

As they sat speechless through the day 
The spirit of the boy did stay 

Saddening them both and making cold 
Their hearts. 

But when it was the bridal eve a still worse 
thing befell, for he whom the lady had once 
loved wholly burst his tomb, at last, and 
claimed her body that had been his, and left 
her faithless soul ; and the soul and Chaitivel 
remained together, confronting each other, 
and 

She seemed an angel, thrice more fair 
Than she had seemed a woman. 

Her soul would have triumphed, in this hour, 
"free of the torn frame, and all acquitted," 
but then came Pharamond, and 

... As one might go 
Against one's death, the Chaitivel 
Went against Pharamond that night 
And met him, and the two did fight. 

And so they fight on till the end. 

Briefly as I have been compelled to con- 
dense this Lay, I think I have given enough 
36 



His Life and his Work 

of it to prove the power and originality of 
its conception, and the poetic charm of its 
execution. 

In the other Lays are passages of great beauty; 
but I have spoken in discussing this volume, 
chiefly of Chaitivel, as by this poem I am 
persuaded that O'Shaughnessy may be justly 
judged, as to his place in the realm of imagina- 
tive narrative poetry. This volume contains, 
besides the narratives, several very lovely lyr- 
ics, which will be found among the selections 
that are to follow this sketch. 

O'Shaughnessy's third volume was Music 
and Moonlight, published in 1874 — about 
a year after his marriage. This volume con- 
tains not a little of its author's best work ; but 
it displays that fatal lack of the power of rigid 
self-criticism which kept him from knowing 
what not to include ; and it therefore failed to 
add materially to his reputation. The ode 
with which it opens is so noble that, in justice 
to the varied powers of this man whom, so far, 
you have seen chiefly as the poet of love and 
sorrow, it must be included in my selections. 

One lyric from Music and Moonlight 
is an especially characteristic illustration of 
3* 37 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

O'Shaughnessy's peculiar charm, and also of 
that lack of keen self-criticism to which I have 
already dluded : 

I made another garden, yea. 

For my new lovej 
I left the dead rose where it lay. 

And set the new above. 
Why did the summer not begin ? 

Why did my heart not haste ? 
My old love came and walked therein 

And laid the garden waste. 

She entered with her weary smile 

Just as of old J 
She looked around a little while, 

And shivered at the cold. 
Her passing touch was death to all, 

Her passing look a blight 5 
She made the white rose petals fall, 

And turned the red rose white. 

Her pale robe clinging to the grass 

Seemed like a snake 
That bit the grass and ground, alas ! 

And a sad trail did make — 
She went up slowly to the gate j 

And there, just as of yore. 
She turned back at the last to wait, 

And say farewell once more. 
38 



His Life and his Work 

This song is certainly a gem, and it might 
have been a flawless one but for the first half 
of the last stanza, which bears witness to 
O'Shaughnessy's lack of power to perceive de- 
fects. Every other line of the song is so per- 
fect, that you wonder how he could have 
borne to say : 

Seemed like a snake 
That bit the grass and ground, alas ! 
And a sad trail did make. 

The subtle and half-mystical imagination 
of some of these poems is such as to withdraw 
them from popularity — from the lazy appre- 
ciation of easy-going readers; but no poet, 
no one, indeed, whose soul is imbued with the 
true love of true poetry, could read Music and 
Moonlight without a perception, keen even to 
pain, of the loss it was to the world when a 
pitiless winter wind blew out the brief, bright 
flame of this man's life. 

I may not pause to speak of The Disease 
of the Soul — 

Oh, exquisite malady of the soul, 
How hast thou marred me ! 
39 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

nor yet of the Song of Betrothal, or In Love's 
Eternity, much as I should like to introduce 
them to the reader ; but I must quote from 
that poem, more audacious than almost any- 
thing even of O'Shaughnessy's, The Song of 
the Holy Spirit, this fragment of description : 

The long-hushed eve 
Glowed purple, and the awed soul of the thunder 
Lay shuddering in the distance ; and the heave 
Of great, unsolaced seas over and under 
The tremulous earth was heard with them to grieve. 

It was a true poet who could feel the heave 
of "great, unsolaced seas." 

After the publication of Music and Moon- 
light, life was full of trouble for O'Shaugh- 
nessy. His children were born and died ; his 
wife, with all her wit and charm, became a 
hopeless invalid, and so remained until her 
death. He wanted to earn more money than 
the British Museum afforded him, and he did 
a good deal of prose work — papers on scien- 
tific subjects, reviews, anything that could 
help to fill that purse open at both ends ; and 
thus it chanced that he died in 1881, having 
published no volume of poems since Music 
40 



His Life and his Work 

and Moonlight, in 1874; and his last book- 
Songs of a Worker — was given to the world 
in the spring of 1881, some months after his 
death. 

This volume seems to me largely the tenta- 
tive work of a poet in a transition state. In 
the group of poems called by a singular mis- 
nomer Thoughts in Marble, we certainly 
find little of the cold chastity of sculpture. 
The poems are, indeed, oversensuous— going 
beyond even the not too rigid boundaries the 
author set for himself in An Epic of Women. 
The book, I must take leave to say, was too 
indulgently edited by O'Shaughnessy's cou- 
sin, the Reverend Newport Deacon, who 
avows, in his introduction, that of the poems 
evidently intended for publication left in man- 
uscript by the poet, not one has been omitted. 
This too lavish inclusiveness was certainly 
in some instances a grave mistake. Instead of a 
well-pruned garden of choice flowers, we have 
a riotous plot of blossoms, desperately sweet, 
some of them, but overrun, here and there, with 
weeds, and with, sometimes, more thorns than 
roses. Still we can but be thankful for a volume 
that gives us the Song of a Fellow Worker ; a 
41 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

poem so blood-red with humanity as Christ 
Will Return, and, above all, anything so no- 
ble as the first part of En Soph, in which, I 
think, the author approaches actual sublimity 
more nearly than in any other of his poems. 
We behold in it a procession of souls, passing 
in review before the creating God, ere he sends 
them to live, on this earth, their little lives. 
In this shadowy procession the poet sees him- 
self, and perceives, as in a vision, the pain and 
passion, the long sorrow and brief joy of his 
life on earth, and cries out to be spared from 
it, thus : 

Oh, let me not be parted from the light ! 

Oh, send me not to where the outer stars 
Tread their uncertain orbits, growing less bright 

Cycle by cycle ; where through narrowing bars 
The soul looks up and scarcely sees the throne 

It fell from ; where the stretched-out Hand, 
that guides 
On to the end, in that dull slackening zone 

Reaches but feebly ; and where man abides 
And finds out Heaven with his heart alone. 

I fear to live the life that shall be mine 

Down in the half lights of that wandering world, 

'Mid ruined angels' souls that cease to shine, 

Where fragments of the broken stars are hurled, 
42 



His Life and his Work 

Quenched to the ultimate dark. Shall I believe, 
Remembering, as of some exalted dream, 

The life of flame, the splendor that I leave ? 
For, between life and death shall it not seem 

The fond, false hope my shuddering soul would weave. 

I dread the pain that I shall know on earth. 

Give me another heart, but not that one 
That cannot cease to suffer from its birth 

With love, with grief, with hope } that will not shun 
One human sorrow j that will pursue, indeed, 

With tears more piteous than the woes they weep. 
Hearts which, soon comforted, will leave to bleed 

My heart on all the thorns of life. Oh, keep 
That life from me — let me some other lead ! 

I fear to love as I shall love down there ; 

It is not like the changeless, heavenly love. 
I see a woman as an angel fair. 

And know that I shall set her face above 
All other hope or memory. Day by day — 

Ah, through what agony and what despair ! 
My soul's eternity will melt away 

In following her. O God ! I cannot bear 
The passionate griefs I see along my way ! 

I shall not keep her ; and I fear the grave 

Where she will lie at last j for though my soul 

Would yearn to wreck itself, yea, even to save 
Her earthly, perishable beauty whole, 
43 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

I shall but pray to lie down at her side 

And mingle with her dust, dreaming no dream, 

Unless we wander hand in hand, or hide 

Hopeless together by some phantom stream — 

Lost souls in human lives too sorely tried. 



So prayed I, feeling even as I prayed 

Torments and fever of a strange unrest 
Take hold upon my spirit, fain to have stayed 

In the eternal calm, and ne'er essayed 
The perilous strife, the all too bitter test 

Of earthly sorrow, fearing — and ah ! too well — 
To be quite ruined in some grief below. 

And ne'er regain the heaven from which I fell. 
But then the angel smote my sight — 't was so 

I woke into this world of love and woe. 



In this volume there are fewer of those deli- 
cate lyrics by which O'Shaughnessy is best 
known to his lovers than in either of the others; 
yet there are enough to show that the singer 
had not lost his power to sing. At Her Grave, 
written literally at his wife's grave some few 
months after her death, is full of pathetic 
charm. The Old House, Lynmouth, Eden, 
and half a dozen others are worthy of special 
mention, and I cannot refrain from allowing 
44 



His Life and his Work 

these two stanzas about A Rose to shed their 
parting fragrance over these pages : 

When the Rose came I loved the Rose, 

And thought of none beside, 
Forgetting all the other flowers. 

And all the others died j 
And morn, and noon, and sun, and showers. 

And all things loved the Rose, 
Who only half returned my love. 

Blooming alike for those. 

I was the rival of a score 

Of loves on gaudy wing — 
The nightingale I would implore 

For pity not to sing. 
Each called her his j still I was glad 

To wait, or take my part ; 
I loved the Rose — who might have had 

The fairest lily's heart. 

Considering the varied power displayed in 
this last volume, which comes to us from the 
dead — like a flower springing upon a grave — 
it moves us with more regret for the author's 
loss than even any of the others. He had taken 
to himself a new harp, but he had not yet com- 
pletely strung it. His outlook was larger — 
45 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

his sympathies were deeper. Christ Will Re- 
turn was the cry of a man penetrated with 
the sorrows of other men, and ready to use his 
pen in their service. Had he lived he would 
have learned how to clothe his passion for hu- 
manity with the same tender grace with which 
in earlier days he sang the love of woman. 
But, literally, " a wind blew out of a cloud by 
night, chilling and killing'' him, and, after an 
illness of scarcely a week's duration, the swift 
end came. Yet, to his thought, the cessation 
of this ache of living had never seemed the end. 
His vision pierced mysteries unknown to duller 
souls, and while he had so keen a sense of a life 
continuing underground that he could fancy his 
dead heart throbbing with all human pains, he 
yet foresaw, for that spiritual essence which 
was his essential self, the infinite possibilities 
of forever renewed life and of infinite worlds. 

Louise Chandler Moulton. 
February, 1894. 



46 



FROM AN EPIC OF WOMEN 
AND OTHER POEMS 



EXILE 

Des volupt^s int^rieures, 
Le sourire mysterieux. 

Victor Hugo. 

A COMMON folk I walk among ; 

I speak dull things in their own tongue : 
But all the while within I hear 
A song I do not sing for fear — 

How sweet, how different a thing ! 

And when I come where none are near 

I open all my heart and sing. 

I am made one with these indeed. 

And give them all the love they need — 
Such love as they would have of me : 
But in my heart — ah, let it be ! — 

I think of it when none is nigh — 
There is a love they shall not see ; 

For it I live — for it will die. 
4 49 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

And ofttimes, though I share their joys. 

And seem to praise them with my voice. 
Do I not celebrate my own. 
Ay, down in some far inward zone 

Of thoughts in which they have no part? 
Do I not feel — ah, quite alone 

With all the secret of my heart ? 

when the shroud of night is spread 
On these, as Death is on the dead. 

So that no sight of them shall mar 
The blessed rapture of a star — 

Then I draw forth those thoughts at will ; 
And like the stars those bright thoughts are ; 

And boundless seems the heart they fill : 

For every one is as a link ; 

And I enchain them as I think ; 
Till present and remembered bliss. 
And better worlds on after this, 

1 have — led on from each to each 

Athwart the Hmitless abyss — 
In some surpassing sphere I reach. 

I draw a veil across my face 
Before I come back to the place 
50 



Selections from His Poems 

And dull obscurity of these ; 

I hide my face, and no man sees j 
I learn to smile a lighter smile. 

And change and look just what they please. 
It is but for a Httle while. 

I go with them ; and in their sight 
I would not scorn their Httle light. 

Nor mock the things they hold divine ; 

But when I kneel before the shrine 
Of some base deity of theirs, 

I pray all inwardly to mine. 
And send my soul up with my prayers : 

For I — ah, to myself I say — 

I have a heaven though far away ; 
And there my love went long ago. 
With all the things my heart loves so ; 

And there my songs fly, every one : 
And I shall find them there I know 

When this sad pilgrimage is done. 



51 



THE CYPRESS 

O IVORY bird, that shakest thy wan plumes. 
And dost forget the sweetness of thy throat 
For a most strange and melancholy note — 

That will forsake the summer and the blooms 
And go to winter in a place remote ! 

The country where thou goest. Ivory bird ! 

It hath no pleasant nesting-place for thee ; 

There are no skies nor flowers fair to see. 
Nor any shade at noon — as I have heard — 

But the black shadow of the Cypress tree. 

The Cypress tree, it groweth on a mound ; 
And sickly are the flowers it hath of May, 
Full of a false and subtle spell are they ; 

For whoso breathes the scent of them around. 
He shall not see the happy Summer day. 

In June, it bringeth forth, O Ivory bird ! 

A winter berry, bitter as the sea; 

And whoso eateth of it, woe is he — 
He shall fall pale, and sleep — as I have heard — 

Long in the shadow of the Cypress tree. 
5* 



A WHISPER FROM THE GRAVE 

My Life points with a radiant hand 

Along a golden ray of sun 
That lights some distant promised land, 

A fair way for my feet to run : 
My Death stands heavily in gloom. 
And digs a soft bed in the tomb 

Where I may sleep when all is done. 

The flowers take hold upon my feet ; 

Fair fingers beckon me along ; 
I find Life's promises so sweet 

Each thought within me turns to song : 
But Death stands digging for me — lest 
Some day I need a little rest. 

And come to think the way too long. 

O seemxS there not beneath each rose 

A face ? — the blush comes burning through 

And eyes my heart already knows 
Are filling themselves from the blue 
4* 53 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

Above the world ; and One, whose hair 
Holds all my sun, is coming, fair. 

And must bring heaven if all be true : 

And now I have face, hair, and eyes ; 

And lo, the Woman that these make 
Is more than flower, and sun, and skies ! 

Her slender lingers seem to take 
My whole fair hfe, as 't were a bowl. 
Wherein she pours me forth her soul. 

And bids me drink it for her sake. 

Methinks the world becomes an isle ; 

And there — immortal as it seems — 
I gaze upon her face, whose smile 

Flows round the world in golden streams ; 
Ah, Death is digging for me deep. 
Lest some day I should need to sleep 

And solace me with other dreams ! 

But now I feel as though a kiss 
Of hers should ever give me birth 

In some new heaven of lifelong bliss ; 
And heedlessly, athwart my mirth, 

I see Death digging day by day 

A grave ; and, very far away, 
I hear the falUng of the earth. 
54 



Selections from His Poems 

Ho there, if thou wilt wait for me. 

Thou Death ! — I say — keep in thy shade. 

Crouch down behind the willow-tree. 
Lest thou shouldst make my love afraid. 

If thou hast aught with me, pale friend. 

Some flitting leaf its sigh shall lend 
To tell me when the grave is made ! 

And lo, e'en while I now rejoice. 
Encircled by my love's fair arm. 

There cometh up to me a voice. 

Yea, through the fragrance and the charm ; 

Quite like some sigh the forest heaves — 

Quite soft — a murmur of dead leaves. 
And not a voice that bodeth harm. 

lover, fear not — have thou joy ; 
For life and love are in thy hands : 

1 seek in nowise to destroy 

The peace thou hast, nor make the sands 
Run quicker through thy pleasant span. 
Blest art thou above many a man. 

And fair is she who with thee stands. 

I only keep for thee out here — 
O far away, as thou hast said, 
55 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

Among the willow-trees — a clear. 
Soft space for slumber, and a bed ; 

That, after all, if life be vain. 

And love turn at the last to pain. 

Thou mayst have ease when thou art dead. 

O grieve not : back to thy love's lips — 
Let her embrace thee more and more. 

Consume that sweet of hers in sips ; 
I only wait till it is o'er ; 

For fear thou 'It weary of her kiss. 

And come to need a bed like this 

Where none shall kiss thee evermore. 

Beheve each pleasant muttered vow 
She makes to thee, and see with ease 

Each promised heaven before thee now : 
I only think, if one of these 

Should fail thee — O thou wouldst need then 

To come away, right far from men. 
And weep beneath the willow-trees. 

And, therefore, have I made this place. 

Where thou shouldst come on that hard day. 

Full of a sad and weary grace ; 

For here the drear wind hath its way 
56 



Selections from His Poems 

With grass, and flowers, and withered tree - 
As sorrow shall that day with thee. 
If it should happen as I say. 

And, therefore, have I kept the ground 
As 't were quite holy, year by year. 

The great wind lowers to a sound 
Of sighing as it passes near ; 

And seldom doth a man intrude 

Upon the hallowed solitude. 
And never but to shed a tear. 

So, if it be thou come, alas ! 

For sake of sorrow long and deep, 
I — Death, the flowers, and leaves, and grass,- 

Thy grief-fellows, do mourn and weep ; 
Or, if thou come, with life's whole need. 
To rest a lifelong space, indeed, 

I, too, and they, do guard thy sleep. 

Moreover, sometimes, while all we 
Have kept the grave with heaviness. 

The weary place hath seemed to be 
Not barren of all blessedness : 

Spent sunbeams rest them here at noon. 

And grieving spirits from the moon 
Wal^k here at night in shining dress. 
57 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

And there is gazing down on all 

Some great and love-like eye of blue 

Wherefrom at times there seem to fall 
Strange looks that soothe the place quite 
through ; 

As though, indeed, if all love's sweet 

And all life's good should prove a cheat. 
They knew some heaven that might be true. 

It is a tender voice like this 

That comes to me in accents fair : 

Well, and through much of love and bliss. 
It seemeth not a thing quite bare 

Of comfort, e'en to be possest 

Of that one spot of earth for rest. 
Among the willow-trees down there. 



58 



BISCLAVARET 

Bisclavaret ad nun en Bretan, 
Garwall I'apelent li Norman. 
Jadis le poet-hum oir, 
E souvent suleit avenir, 
Humes plusurs Garwall devindrent 
E es boscages meisun tindrent. 

Marie de France : Lais. 

In either moody to bless or curse ^ 

God bringeth forth the breath of man; 

No angel sire, no woman nurse, 

Shall change the work that God began : 

One spirit shall be like a star^ 
He shall delight to honor one ; 

Another spirit he shall mar ; 

None shall undo what God hath done. 

The weaker, holier season wanes ; 

Night comes with darkness and with sins ; 
And, in all forests, hills, and plains, 

A keener, fiercer life begins. 
59 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

And, sitting by the low hearth-iires, 

I start and shiver fearfully ; 
For thoughts all strange, and new desires 

Of distant things take hold on me ; 

And many a feint of touch or sound 
Assails me, and my senses leap 

As in pursuit of false things found 
And lost in some dim path of sleep. 

But, momently, there seems restored 
A triple strength of life and pain ; 

I thrill, as though a wine were poured 
Upon the pore of every vein. 

I burn, as though keen wine were shed 
On all the sunken flames of sense — 

Yea, till the red flame grows more red. 
And all the burning more intense. 

And, sloughing weaker hves, grown wan 
With needs of sleep and weariness, 

I quit the hallowed haunts of man 
And seek the mighty wilderness. 

— Now over intervening waste 

Of lowland drear, and barren wold, 
60 



Selections from His Poems 

I scour, and ne'er assuage my haste. 
Inflamed with yearnings manifold : 

Drinking a distant sound that seems 
To come around me like a flood ; 

While all the track of moonhght gleams 
Before me like a streak of blood; 

And bitter, stifling, scents are past 

A-dying on the night behind, 
And sudden, piercing stings are cast 

Against me in the tainted wind. 

And lo ! afar, the gradual stir. 

And rising of the stray wild leaves; 

The swaying pine, and shivering fir. 

And windy sound that moans and heaves 

In strange fits, till with utter throes 
The whole wild forest lolls about, 

And all the fiercer clamor grows. 
And all the moan becomes a shout ; 

And mountains near and mountains far 
Breathe freely, and the mingled roar 

Is as of floods beneath some star 

Of storms, when shore cries unto shore. 
6i 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

But soon, from every hidden lair 
Beyond the forest tracks, in thick. 

Wild coverts, or in deserts bare. 

Behold they come, renewed and quick. 

The splendid fearful herds that stray 
By midnight, when tempestuous moons 

Light them to many a shadowy prey. 
And earth beneath the thunder swoons. 

O who at any time hath seen 
Sight all so fearful and so fair, 

Unstricken at his heart with keen 
Whole envy at that hour to share 

Their unknown curse, and all the strength 
Of the wild thirsts and lusts they know; 

The sharp joys sating them at length. 
The new and greater lusts that grow ? 

But who of mortals shall rehearse 
How fair and dreadfully they stand. 

Each marked with an eternal curse. 
Alien from every kin and land ? 

— Along the bright and blasted heights 

Loudly their cloven footsteps ring j 

62 



Selections from His Poems 

Full on their fronts the lightning smites. 
And falls like some dazed, baffled thing. 

Now through the mountain clouds they break. 
With many a crest high-antlered, reared 

Athwart the storm : now they outshake 
Fierce locks or manes, glossy and weird. 

That sweep with sharp perpetual sound 
The arid heights where the snows drift. 

And drag the slain pines to the ground. 
And all into the whirlwind lift 

The heavy sinking slopes of shade 
From hidden hills of monstrous girth. 

Till the new unearthly lights have flayed 
The draping darkness from the earth. 

Henceforth what hiding-place shall hide 
All hallowed spirits that in form 

Of mortal stand beneath the wide 

And wandering pale eye of the storm ? 

The beadsman in his lonely cell 

Hath cast one boding timorous look 

Toward the heights — then loud and well. 
Kneeling before the open book, 
63 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

All night he prayeth in one breath. 
Nor spareth now his sins to own : 

And through his prayer he shuddereth 
To hear how loud the forests groan. 

For all abroad the lightnings reign. 
And rally, with their lurid spell. 

The multitudinous campaign 

Of hosts not yet made fast in Hell: 

And us indeed no common arm, 
Nor magic of the dark, may smite ; 

But through all elements of harm. 

Across the strange fields of the night, — 

Enrolled with the whole giant host 

Of shadowy, cloud-outstripping things. 

Whose vengeful spells are uppermost. 
And convoyed by unmeasured wings. 

We foil the thin dust of fatigue 

With bright-shod phantom feet that dare 
All pathless places and the league 

Of the light-shifting soils of air; 

And loud, mid fearful echoings. 

Our throats, aroused with Hell's own thirsty 
64 



Selections from His Poems 

Outbay the eternal trumpetings ; 
The while, all impious and accurst, 

Revealed and perfected at length 
In whole and dire transfigurement. 

With miracle of growing strength 
We win upon a keen, warm scent. 

Before us each cloud-fastness breaks. 
And o'er slant inward wastes of light. 

And past the moving mirage-lakes, 

And on — within the Lord's own sight — 

We hunt the chosen of the Lord ; 

And cease not, in wild course elate, 
Until we see the flaming sword 

And Gabriel before hi§ gate ! 

O many a fair and noble prey 
Falls bitterly beneath our chase ; 

And no man till the judgment day 

Hath power to give these burial-place ; 

But down in many a stricken home 

About the world, for these they mourn ; 

And seek them yet through Christendom 
In all the lands where they were born. 
5 65 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

And oft, when Hell's dread prevalence 
Is past, and once more to the earth 

In chains of narrowed human sense 
We turn — around our place of birth, 

We hear the new and piercing wail ; 

And, through the haunted day's long glare. 
In fearful lassitudes turn pale 

With thought of all the curse we bear. 

But, for long seasons of the moon. 

When the whole giant earth, stretched low. 

Seems straightening in a silent swoon 
Beneath the close grip of the snow, 

We well nigh cheat the hideous spells 
That force our souls resistless back. 

With languorous torments worse than Hell's 
To the frail body's fleshly rack ; 

And with our brotherhood the storms — 
Whose mighty revelry unchains 

The avalanches, and deforms 

The ancient mountains and the plains — 

We hold high orgies of the things. 
Strange and accursdd of all flesh, 
66 



Selections from His Poems 

Whereto the quick sense ever brings 
The sharp forbidden thrill afresh. 

And far away, among our kin. 
Already they account our place 

With all the slain ones, and begin 
The Masses for our soul's full grace. 



67 



THE STORY OF THE KING 

This is the story of the King : 
Was he not great in everything ? 

He built him dwelling-places three : 
In one of them his Youth should be. 

To make it fair for many a feast 

He conquered the whole East; 
He brought delight from every land. 
And gold from many a river's strand. 

And all things precious he could find 

In Perse, or utmost Ind. 

There, brazen guarded were the doors. 
And o'er the many painted floors 

The captive women came and went; 

Or, with bright ornament, 
Sat in the pillared places gay. 
And feasted with him every day. 

And fed him with their rosy kiss : 

O there he had all bliss ! 
68 



Selections from His Poems 

Then afterward, when he did hear 
There was none like him anywhere. 

He would behold the sight so sweet 

Of all men at his feet ; 
And, since he heard that certainly 
Not like a man was he to die. 

For all his lust that palace vast 

It seemed too small at last : 

Therefore, another house he made. 
So wide that it might hold arrayed 
The thousand peers of his domain 
And last his godlike reign. 
And here he was, a goodly span. 
While before came every man 

To kneel and worship in his sight : 
O there he had all might ! 

And yet, most surely it befel. 
He tired of this house as well : 

Was it too mighty after all ? 

Or still perhaps too small ? 
Strangely in all men's wonderment. 
He left it for a tenement 

He had all builded in one year : 

Now he is dwelling there. 
5* 69 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

He took full little of his gold. 
And of his pleasures manifold 

He had but a small heed, they say, 

That day he went away. 
O, the new dwelling he hath found 
Is but a man's grave in the ground. 

And taketh up but one man's space 

In the small burial-place. 

And now, indeed, that he is dead. 
The nations have they no more dread ? 

Lo, is not this the King they swore 

To worship evermore ? 
Will no one Love of his come near 
And kiss him while he lieth there. 

And warm his freezing lips again ? — 

Is this then all his reign ? 

He must have longed ere this to rise 
And be again in all men's eyes ; 

For the place where he dwelleth now 

Lonely it is, I trow : 
But, just to stand in his own hall 
And feel the warmth there, once for all, 

O would he not give crowns of gold?- 

For the place is so cold ! 
70 



Selections from His Poems 

But over him a tomb doth stand. 
The costliest in all the land; 

And of the glory that he bore 

It telleth evermore. 
So these three dwellings he hath had. 
And mighty he hath been and glad: — 

O hath he not been sad as well ? 

Perhaps — but who can tell? 

This is the story of the King : 
Was he not great in everything ? 



71 



THE FOUNTAIN OF TEARS 

If you go over desert and mountain, — 
Far into the country of sorrow, — 
To-day and to-night and to-morrow. 

And maybe for months and for years ; 

You shall come, with a heart that is bursting 
For trouble and toihng and thirsting. 

You shall certainly come to the fountain 

At length, — to the Fountain of Tears. 

Very peaceful the place is, and solely 
For piteous lamenting and sighing. 
And those who come hving or dying 

Alike from their hopes and their fears : 
Full of cypress-like shadows the place is. 
And statues that cover their faces ; 

But out of the gloom springs the holy 

And beautiful Fountain of Tears. 

And it flows and it flows with a motion 
So gentle and lovely and listless. 



Selections from His Poems 

And murmurs a tune so resistless 
To him who hath suffered and hears. 

You shall surely — without a word spoken — 
Kneel down there and know your heart 
broken. 
And yield to the long-curbed emotion 
That day by the Fountain of Tears. 

For it grows and it grows, as though leaping 
Up higher the more one is thinking; 
And ever its tunes go on sinking 

More poignantly into the ears. 

Yea, so blessed and good seems that fountain. 
Reached after dry desert and mountain. 

You shall fall down at length in your weeping 

And bathe your sad face in the tears. 

Then, alas ! while you lie there a season. 
And sob between living and dying. 
And give up the land you were trying 

To find 'mid your hopes and your fears — 
O the world shall come up and pass o'er you. 
Strong men shall not stay to care for you. 

Nor wonder indeed for what reason 

Your way should seem harder than theirs. 
73 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

But perhaps, while you He, never lifting 
Your cheek from the wet leaves it presses. 
Nor caring to raise your wet tresses 

And look how the cold world appears : — 
O perhaps the mere silences round you — 
All things in that place grief hath found you. 

Yea, e'en to the clouds o'er you drifting — 

May soothe you somewhat through your tears. 

You may feel, when a falling leaf brushes 
Your face, as though some one had kissed you ; 
Or think at least some one who missed you 

Hath sent you a thought, — if that cheers ; 
Or a bird's little song, faint and broken. 
May pass for a tender word spoken : 

Enough, while around you there rushes 

That Ufe-drowning torrent of tears. 

And the tears shall flow faster and faster. 

Brim over and baffle resistance. 

And roll down bleared roads to each distance 
Of past desolation and years ; 

Till they cover the place of each sorrow. 

And leave you no Past and no Morrow : 
For what man is able to master 
And stem the great Fountain of Tears ? 
74 



Selections from His Poems 

But the floods of the tears meet and gather ; 

The sound of them all grows as thunder : 

O into what bosom, I wonder. 
Is poured the whole sorrow of years ? 

For eternity only seems keeping 

Account of the great human weeping : 
May God, then, the Maker and Father — 
May he find a place for the tears ! 



75 



THERE IS AN EARTHLY GLIMMER 
IN THE TOMB 

There is an earthly glimmer in the tomb ; 
And, healed in their own tears and with long 

sleep. 
My eyes unclose and feel no need to weep ; 
But, in the corner of the narrow room. 
Behold, Love's spirit standeth, with the bloom 
That things made deathless by Death's self 

may keep. 
O what a change ! for now his looks are 
deep. 
And a long patient smile he can assume : 
While Memory, in some soft low monotone. 
Is pouring like an oil into mine ear 
The tale of a most short and hollow bhss. 
That I once throbbed, indeed, to call my own,, 
Holding it hardly between joy and fear, — 
And how that broke, and how it came to 
this. 



76 



FROM LAYS OF FRANCE 



FROM THE LAY OF THE 
NIGHTINGALE 

The houses were together quite ; 

The roofs and all the window places 
Drew nigh, with yearning to unite ; 

They were most like two lovers' faces, 
Leaving just space enough for sighs. 

And fair love looks, and soft replies. 
You could just see the blue above. 

You were just far enough for breath. 
Indeed, just near enough for love : 

There lay a little turf beneath 
Where a few sickly flowers grew. 

Chilled by the shadows of the eaves, 
Warmed by the light that trembled through, 

A rose all white and with no leaves. 

Slender and hke a maid that grieves. 
And other blossoms, one or two. 

But round about and from the sides 
At every moment you could hear 

A pleasant noise of wind that glides 
Among thick boughs ; for very near 
79 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

There was a garden, and a wood 
Full of sweet-scented trees that stood. 

Shivering for pleasure in the sun. 
Whose shadows rustled on the wall ; 

There through the day, one after one. 
The sweet birds sang till even-fall ; 

And then they ceased, and the night long 
Sang that one sweetest of them all — 

The nightingale, O many a song. 
Or all one song that could not pall. 

Of love, luxurious and long. 

And heavy hazel boughs shut in 

The souls and scents of all the flowers. 
The noon, the night, and the fair hours ; 

And kept the place all dim within, 

A pleasant place for Love's sweet sin. 
The noon fell almost to twilight 

Under the heavy hazel boughs ; 

And the great shadow of each house 
Growing, made dark the other, quite ; 

There the dim time was very sweet ; 
And hours between the noon and night 

Were slow to pass, with lagging feet 

And wings full loaded ; tarried late. 
Till long fair lingers from the deep. 



Selections from His Poems 

Dark wood came forth to separate 

Leaves — lights from shades and love from 
sleep, — 
And the moon, like a dreamed-of face 

Seen gradually in the dark. 
Grew up and filled the silent place 

Between those houses wan and stark. 



gi 



FROM THE LAY OF TWO LOVERS 

Lady, is there indeed no place 

Beyond the world for thee and me ? 
Where we may love a little space. 

And joy, as any flower or tree 
That loves the sun ; and half forget 

That Life our enemy hath been. 
And Fate a bloodhound, keenly set 

To hunt us on, through waste and green. 
And night and day, and year and year. 
Lest we should hallow and make dear 

One spot of bitter earth with bliss ? 
Is there, indeed, beyond the day. 

Beyond the eve, beyond the sun. 

No dreamed-of place where we shall kiss. 
Aye, kiss, and put all fear away. 

Death tarrying till our kiss is done ? 

My love, I have a lay well fit 

For me to sing and thee to hear ; 
82 



Selections from His Poems 

For they of whom I find it writ 

Did long time, amid hope and fear. 
Love secretly. 



They had been happy, yea, in truth 
A few sweet hours of precious youth. 

Ere the world found them. Once and more 
The rich effusion of some kiss 

Had warmed shy scents the roses bore. 
Making the full heart of some noon 
Their own most strangely in a bhss 

No summer knew or felt before 
They loved ; and once and more the swoon 

Of eve had lengthened out some joy 
Of theirs, delaying the hard chill 

And dim aifright that would destroy 
Too shortly such a day, until 

The blithe, eternal nightingale 

Had seen and known, and did not fail 
To sing, that though hard fate should kill 

The twain at midnight, they had taste 
Of sweet, for one rich day of life. 
Many a garden place was rife 

With tender record of fond waste 
83 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

Of hours, and broken words and sighs. 
In the long innocence when love 

Kept fearful fetters on their eyes 

And Hps and hearts, the more to prove 

His strong life-filling flower, one day 
A bursting blossom not forborne. 

But now the fair earth turned away 

Her summer from them : on no morn 
Did shy beams, steaHng from the sun. 

Bring early promise of joy born 
To fill them till that day was done 

In some close paradise of bloom. 

Where love had made them a fair room 
With unbetraying bird and tree 
And sleek, scared fawn. O but to see 

The warm, bright chambers under leaf 
Sun-streaked and gilded morn and noon ; 

The burrow under the arched sheaf 
Whose crowned heads nodded to some tune 

Of wordless wavy motion, dim 
And dense with harvest scent that drew 

The brown bee blundering o'er the rim 
To drone about them, the noon through ! 



84 



Selections from His Poems 

Their place was no more in the bloom ; 
All ruined was it ; and their doom 

Was a thing sung of by the bird 
That long had caught his rhapsody- 
Straight out of their charmed thinking, heard 
And felt hke some strong melody 

The corn or trees made, wordless, wild. 
And wonderful ; in the gray shade 
The searched and trampled solitude 

Still bore the curses that defiled 
Its echoes ; all the mournful glade 
Had heard dread shouts, and voices rude. 

Yea, the whole country no more had 
One shelter of sweet green, one wood. 

One safe bright path for them, not one ; 

But bitter seemed its smile, and sad. 
And like an ahen land it grew. 

That put scorn of them in its sun. 
And death lurked in its shade, they knew. 

There was no path to other lands. 
Save only by the mountain, steep 

And desolate, that stood above, 

A mighty way, and seemed to sleep 

On through the year, in storm or rain. 

6* 8s 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

Fearful seemed 
That mountain in the distance ; slope 
On slope of green they counted high 

Upon its side — down which there streamed 
Whole rivers fallen from the sky. 

But sometimes they had even dreamed 
There was a way to Heaven, past 

The topmost crag and precipice. 
Often a golden cloud was cast 

Across it ; bright, and like a piece 
Of purest Heaven it floated there 
And faded not : but in the fair. 

Angelic moonlight a most strange 
And holy smile seemed resting wide 

Upon its height, working some change 
Of snowy mystery: one noontide 

They saw high up there, nigh the sun. 

Fair arched paths, gleaming every one 
As though the wingdd angels trod 
Them ofttime, going up to God. 



So they went upward, still, to learn 
The mystery of the mountain. Day 
On day, they ever found some way 

Higher and stranger, past return, 
86 



Selections from His Poems 

Leading up through the soHtude 
They sought. 

And never-ending sight they had 
Of Heaven and higher Heaven ; and, free. 

With winged feet that were bright and glad 
To walk upon the silver sea 

Of airy cloud and air, no stay 

They made, but upward the great way 

Went ever, loving ever, yea. 
And drawing nigh to Love. 

And now, 
Alas, that neither I nor thou 

Can know the full and perfect fate 
They have ; nor where at length they are. 

Nor for what fairer thing they wait. 

Yet shall their fate, whate'er it be 
Come very soon on me and thee ! 



87 



FROM CHAITIVEL 

Ladies and lovers, will ye see 
How gold hair hath its perjury ? 

And how the lip may twice or thrice 
Undo the soul ; and how the heart 

May quite annul the heart's own price 
Given for many a goodly part 

Of Heaven? How one love shall be fair 

And whole and perfect in the rare. 
Great Hkeness of an angel, — yea. 

And how another, golden-miened. 
With lovely seeming and sweet way. 

Shall come and be but as a fiend 
To tempt and drag the soul away — 

And all forever ? Listen well : 

This is a lay of Heaven and Hell : 
Listen, and think how it shall be 
With you in love's eternity. 

This Sarrazine, of whom I sing. 

Had shut her soul up from each thing 



Selections from His Poems 

That once with all her soul she knew 
Sweet in the earth, bright in the blue ; 

And joyless, in the midst between 

Fair blue of heaven and green earth's green. 

Lived now this lovely Sarrazine, 

With passionate thinking and unknown 
Most secret flowering of her lone 

And infinite beauty. All amazed 

She was, and fearfully she gazed 
Into each dismal future year. 
The while it ceased not that a tear. 

Born of her thought right wearily. 

Found its way backward to the drear. 

Dead ashes of some memory. 
In a sweet, fatal, reckless past 
Love had made recklessly, and cast 

Against her soul. 

She did not die. 

But dreamed and Hved, and bade the gray 

Of grieving, more and more each day 

Gather around and steal away 

Her hidden fairness that was bloom 
More white and wondrous in that tomb 

Where the sun touched it not, and sight 

Should never worship, and delight 

Flower not of it, day or night. 



89 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

Now she would weary out the days 

Joylessly looking on the white. 
Slim wonder that she was, whose praise 

Henceforth must be omitted quite 
Out of men's praising mouths ; whose sight 
Should ne'er strike sudden with amaze 

One other heart fain to have crost 
That sohtude, where she must be 

Henceforth as a flower lost 
Or nameless unto men. To see 

The wild white hlies, passionless 
And lonely, wasted in the rank. 
Green shadowy shallows of the bank. 

Was to see many a loveliness — 
No more rejected and left out. 

As a thing none cared to possess 
Of love and time than, past all doubt. 

Her joyless form and face were now 
Till death. Was the world whole without 

One need of her — one thought of how 
Love prospered making her — one look 

At the short, perfect miracle 
His passionate hands wrought when they took 
The rare, sweet elements, the fine 

And delicate fires, and wove the spell 
Of her rich being ? 

90 



Selections from His Poems 

Did days yet shine 
And men love boundlessly and well 
In the fair world beyond that cell 

Of gray thoughts shutting out the sun 

Her life seemed brought to ? Yea, since none 
Set living heart upon her more. 
And all she was, and all she bore 

Of rare and wonderful lay known 

To the worms only, left alone 
With faded secrets in the core 

Of dead men's hearts ? 

Time was so bare— 

Her heart at solitary feast 

Of sorrow sitting unreleast 

Forever ! 



91 



FROM THE LAY OF ELIDUC 

Now is it time, indeed, and right 

To tell of Guilliadun, the Fair. 

Sweet was her head with woven hair — 
A tender color to behold. 
Between the beauty of fair gold 

And some soft pallor of fair brown ; 

Lovely she was, past all renown ; 
Her face was of no tint one knows. 
Save only that of the Primrose, 

With all its strange rare seeming, too. 

That charmeth so in the spring, new 
After long waiting. Now, in truth. 
All in a tender year of youth. 

She moved in her sweet maidenhood. 



She had a sweet, bright-colored bower 
Hidden with many a leaf and flower ; 
Wrought all beneath the gay sunshine 
With leaf and bloom of eglantine, 
92 



Selections from His Poems 

And branches green, upon the side ; 

There was her heart set open wide 
To heed the marvels of sweet sound, 
Of the trees singing all around. 



God, in all things that he hath made. 

Full many a jewel hath inlaid ; 
For first he hath set all on high 
That fair enamel of the sky. 

Brilliant of blue and eke of white ; 

Then he hath shed the pearl of Hght, 
And made that jewel-work, the seas : 
Nor less a gem, indeed, than these 

I count his miracle, the Rose, 

To love more precious than all those : 
But — a still fairer jewel yet — 
In every woman he hath set 

Her heart ; some sort of precious stone ; 

He shall know perfectly alone 

Who all the stars of heaven can call. 
The worth and number of them all. 

Most are they given away, or sold 

For so much love, or so much gold ; 
Yea, no man knoweth of their cost. 
But well I ween that some are lost, 
93 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

And some are of small worth, they say. 
And some are broken, and cast away. 
It is the fairest thing you can. 
Ladies, to give this to a man — 
This precious jewel that God gave : 
One such is all a man may crave. 



Verily, too. Love hath some wile 
Laid deeply in the sweet sunshine. 
And woven in the tissue fine 

Of the mere hght and floating air ; 

And in the purest place his snare 
Is surely set — in field, or home. 
Or wheresoe'er a man may roam. 

Of all the things a man may have 
Before he cometh to the grave 
This is the richest — to possess 
One yearned-for hour in lonehness 

Beside one's love, in some fair clime. 

In some fair purple autumn time ; 
For quite shall be forgotten then 
The pains and labors among men. 

The bitter things of doubt and fear ; 

The bitter ends of hope ; and, near, 
94 



Selections from His Poems 

Quite at one's side, yea, on one's heart. 
Yea, touching, with no more to part 
The yearning hands, or Hps that meet. 
Shall seem the often dreamed-of sweet 
Much more than all the glowing things 
To which the fondest memory clings. 
Much more than any rapturous past. 
Or future in fair heaven at last. 
And this — the fairest moment, sure. 
In each man's life — it shall endure 

Some noon ; while creeping twilight dims 
Slowly some flower's purple rims. 
Or some green distance sufters change 
Fading before us : then this strange 
And precious rapture — it shall pass. 
And never come again, alas ! 



95 



FROM MUSIC AND MOONLIGHT 



ODE 

We are the music-makers. 

And we are the dreamers of dreams. 
Wandering by lone sea-breakers. 

And sitting by desolate streams ; 
World-losers and world-forsakers. 

On whom the pale moon gleams : 
Yet we are the movers and shakers 

Of the world forever, it seems. 

With wonderful deathless ditties 
We build up the world's great cities. 

And out of a fabulous story 

We fashion an empire's glory : 
One man with a dream, at pleasure. 

Shall go forth and conquer a crown ; 
And three with a new song's measure 

Can trample a kingdom down. 
99 



^ 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

We, in the ages lying 

In the buried past of the earth. 
Built Nineveh with our sighing. 

And Babel itself in our mirth ; 
And o'erthrew them with prophesying 

To the Old of the New World's worth 
For each age is a dream that is dying. 

Or one that is coming to birth. 

A breath of our inspiration 
Is the life of each generation ; 

A wondrous thing of our dreaming. 

Unearthly, impossible seeming — 
The soldier, the king, and the peasant 

Are working together in one. 
Till our dream shall become their present. 

And their work in the world be done. 

They had no vision amazing 

Of the goodly house they are raising; 

They had no divine foreshowing 

Of the land to which they are going : 
But on one man's soul it hath broken, 

A light that doth not depart ; 
And his look, or a word he hath spoken. 

Wrought flame in another man's heart. 



Selections from His Poems 

And therefore to-day is thrilling 
With a past day's late fulfilling ; 

And the multitudes are enlisted 

In the faith that their fathers resisted. 
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow. 

Are bringing to pass, as they may. 
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow. 

The dream that was scorned yesterday. 

But we, with our dreaming and singing. 

Ceaseless and sorrowless we ! 
The glory about us clinging 

Of the glorious futures we see. 
Our souls with high music ringing : 

O men ! it must ever be 
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing, 

A Httle apart from ye. 

For we are afar with the dawning 

And the suns that are not yet high. 
And out of the infinite morning 

Intrepid you hear us cry — 
How, spite of your human scorning. 

Once more God's future draws nigh. 
And already goes forth the warning 

That ye of the past must die. 
7* loi 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

Great hail ! we cry to the comers 

From the dazzHng unknown shore ; 
Bring us hither your sun and your summers. 

And renew our world as of yore ; 
You shall teach us your song's new numbers ; 

And things that we dreamed not before : 
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers. 

And a singer who sings no more. 



HAS SUMMER COME WITHOUT 
THE ROSE? 

Has summer come without the rose," 

Or left the bird behind ? 
Is the blue changed above thee, 

O world ! or am I bhnd ? 
Will you change every flower that grows. 

Or only change this spot. 
Where she who said, I love thee. 

Now says, I love thee not ? 

The skies seemed true above thee. 

The rose true on the tree ; 
The birds seemed true the summer through. 

But all proved false to me. 
World, is there one good thing in you. 

Life, love, or death — or what ? 
Since lips that sang, I love thee. 

Have said, I love thee not ? 
103 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

I think the sun's kiss will scarce fall 

Into one flower's gold cup ; 
I think the bird will miss me. 

And give the summer up. 
O sweet place ! desolate in tall. 

Wild grass, have you forgot 
How her lips loved to kiss me. 

Now that they kiss me not ? 

Be false or fair above me. 

Come back with any face. 
Summer ! — do I care what you do ? 

You cannot change one place — 
The grass, the leaves, the earth, the dew. 

The grave I make the spot — 
Here, where she used to love me. 

Here, where she loves me not. 



104 



THREE GIFTS 

Love took three gifts and came to greet 
My heart. Love gave me what he had. 

The first thing sweet, the second sweet. 
And the last thing sweet and sad. 

The first thing was a lily wan. 

The second was a rose full red. 
The third thing was my lady-swan. 

My lady-love lying dead. 

Come and kiss us, come and see 

How Love hath wrought with her and me ; 
Over our grave the years shall creep. 

Under the years we two shall sleep. 



105 



NOW I AM ON THE EARTH 

Now I am on the earth. 

What sweet things love me ? 
Summer, that gave me birth. 

And glows on still above me ; 
The bird I loved a little while ; 

The rose I planted ; 
The woman in whose golden smile 

Life seems enchanted. 

Now I am in the grave. 

What sweet things mourn me ? 
Summer, that all joys gave. 

Whence death, alas ! hath torn me ; 
One bird that sang to me ; one rose 

Whose beauty moved me ; 
One changeless woman ; yea, all those 

That hving loved me. 



1 06 



A DREAM 

A Dream took hold of the heart of a man. 
To hold it more than a mere dream can ; 
For the Dream was wonderful, glorious, bright, 
A splendor by day and a love by night. 
In an earth all heaven, in a heaven all light — 
For the Dream was a woman, womanly, white. 

And the Dream became such a part of the man. 
That it did for him more than a mere dream can ; 
For soothing sorrows, transforming tears. 
It lifted him higher than hopes and fears ; 
It dwelt with him days, and months, and years, — 
Was love and religion, and faith and prayers. 

And who need be told how that Dream began 
To fail and to fade from the heart of the man ? 
Nay, it vanished, it broke, as the fitfuUest gleam 
Of the sun that fades on the fitfullest stream ; 
And there went with it love and religion, I deem. 
And faith, and glory, and hope, it would seem ; 
For that Dream was a Woman, that Woman 
a Dream. 

107 



AT THE LAST 

By weary paths and wide 
Up many a torn hillside. 
Through all the raging strife 
And the wandering of life. 
Here on the mountain's brow 
I find, I know not how. 
My long-neglected shrine 
Still holy and still mine. 

The wall, with leaves o'ergrown. 
Is ruined, not overthrown ; 
Surely the door hath been 
Guarded by one unseen ; 
Surely the prayer last prayed 
And the dream last dreamed have stayed. 
I will enter, and try once more 
To dream and pray as of yore. 



log 



FROM SONGS OF A WORKER 



AT HER GRAVE 

I HAVE Stayed too long from your grave, it seems; 

Now I come back again ; 
Love,have you stirred down there in your dreams 

Through the sunny days or the rain ? 
Ah, no ! the same peace ; you are happy so ; 
And your flowers, how do they grow ? 

Your rose has a bud : is it meant for me ? 

Ah, little red gift put up 
So silently, like a child's present, you see 

Lying beside your cup ! 
And geranium-leaves — I will take if I may. 
Two or three to carry away. 

I went not far. In yon world of ours 
Grow ugly weeds. With my heart. 

Thinking of you and your garden of flowers, 
I went to do my part ; 

Plucking up where they poison the human wheat 

The weeds of cant and deceit. 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

'T is a hideous thing I have seen, and the toil 

Begets few thanks, much hate ; 
And the new crop only will find the soil 

Less foul ; for the old 't is too late, 
I come back to the only spot I know 
Where a weed will never grow. 



LYNMOUTH 

I HAVE brought her I love to this sweet place. 
Far away from the world of men and strife. 

That I may talk to her a charmed space. 
And make a long, rich memory in my life. 

Around my love and me the brooding hills. 
Full of dehcious murmurs, rise on high. 

Closing upon this spot the summer fills. 

And over which there rules the summer sky. 

Behind us on the shore down there, the sea 
Roars roughly, like a fierce pursuing hound ; 

But all this hour is calm for her and me ; 
And now another hill shuts out the sound. 

And now we breathe the odors of the glen. 

And round about us are enchanted things ; 
The bird that hath bhthe speech unknown to 
men. 
The river keen, that hath a voice and sings. 
8 113 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

The tree that dwells with one ecstatic thought. 
Wider and fairer growing year by year ; 

The flower that flowereth and knoweth naught; 
The bee that scents the flower and draweth 



Our path is here, the rocky winding ledge 
That sheer o'erhangs the rapid shouting 
stream 

Now dips down smoothly to the quiet edge. 
Where restful waters He as in a dream. 

The green exuberant branches overhead 
Sport with the golden magic of the sun. 

Here quite shut out, here like rare jewels shed 
To fright the ghttering lizards as they run. 

And wonderful are all those mossy floors 
Spread out beneath us in some pathless place. 

Where the sun only reaches and outpours 
His smile, where never foot hath left a trace. 

And there are perfect nooks that have been 
made 
By the long-growing tree, through some 
chance turn 



Selections from His Poems 

Its trunk took ; since transformed with scent 
and shade. 
And filled with all the glory of the fern. 

And tender-tinted wood flowers are seen. 
Clear starry blooms, and bells of pensive blue. 

That lead their delicate lives there in the green — 
What were the world if it should lose their 
hue? 

Even o'er the rough out-jutting stone that blocks 
The narrow way some cunning hand hath 
strewn 
The moss in rich adornment, and the rocks 
Down there seem written thick with many 
a rune. 

And here, upon that stone, we rest awhile. 
For we can see the lovely river's fall. 

And wild and sweet the place is to beguile 
My love, and keep her till I tell her all. 

The thing I have to tell her is so great. 

The words themselves would seem of little 
worth ; 
But here grand voices at my bidding wait. 
The torrent is my heart, and roars it forth. 
"5 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

I take my love's hand ; looking in her eyes, 
I strive to speak, but the thought grows too 
vast- — 
Lo ! a bird helps me out with it ; she sighs ; 
Sing on, sweet bird, 't will reach her heart 
at last ! 

Oh, torrent, say thou art this heart of mine. 
Strong, rapid, overwhelming ; I will break 

Life's very rocks with rage akin to thine. 
And conquer, ever striving for her sake. 

Oh, bird, sing thou art even the voice my heart 
Will find to woo her life through, day by day. 

So that she hearing never shall depart. 
And the long way shall seem a little way. 

Oh, wandering river that my love and I 
Behold to-day through many a leafy screen. 

Tell her that life shall be a gUding by 

A course like thine through this enchanted 
scene. 



ii6 



A LOVE SYMPHONY 

Along the garden ways just now 

I heard the flowers speak ; 
The white rose told me of your brow. 

The red rose of your cheek. 
The lily of your bended head. 

The bindweed of your hair : 
Each looked its loveliest and said 

You were more fair, 

I went into the wood anon. 

And heard the wild birds sing. 
How sweet you were ; they warbled on. 

Piped, trilled the selfsame thing. 
Thrush, blackbird, linnet, without pause. 

The burden did repeat. 
And still began again because 

You were more sweet. 

And then I went down to the sea. 
And heard it murmuring too, 
117 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

Part of an ancient mystery. 
All made of me and you. 

How many a thousand years ago 
I loved, and you were sweet. 

Longer I could not stay, and so, 
I fled back to your feet. 



iiS 



IN A BOWER 

A PATH led hither from the house 

Where I have left your doubt and pain, 

fettered days of all my past ; 

1 lingered long, but came at last ; 
One lifting up of fragrant boughs. 

Then love was here and broke my chain 

With eager hands : the die is cast. 
No path leads back again. 

Henceforth, cold tyrant of my heart. 
You rule no longer pulse or breath ; 
Love, with rich words and kisses hot 
Has told me truth in this charmed spot ; 
And, though your hand this hour should part 
The leaves, I have no thought, but saith 

My life is Love's : I fear you not. 
Now you are only Death. 

And Death creeps up the garden walk ; 
But Love hastes, winning more and more : 
119 



Arthur O'Shaughnessy 

My hands, my mouth are his, my hair. 
My breast, as all my first thoughts were ; 
Across the moonht sward Death stalks ; 

But Love upon this flower-strewn floor 
Hath made me wholly his : ah, there ! 

Death stands outside the door. 



The Book ends here. 




February, March, April, 

M.DCCC.XC.IV. 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2009 

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